Movie review

Recently I watched the movie Penelope with my family.
I’d wanted to watch if for a while, so when Netflix delivered,
I was excited. My hubby, not so much. A movie about a girl that looks like a pig… Why? That’s a boy for you! 🙂 For some reason, it made total sense to me. By the way, this movie was rated PG.

So initially, the girl, played by Christina Ricci, had a startling appearance. She was the result of a curse placed on her family years ago, and the only way to be break the spell was to find someone to marry her as she was.

After a series of frightened suitors ran away, Penelope had finally had enough and decided to run away and experience the world in disguise. What she finds is not a man to marry her. Who she finds is herself. She learns about things that she has missed and about what she enjoys.

WARNING: MOVIE SPOILER BELOW!

In the end she realizes that the love she was searching for was the NOT the way to break the curse. The love had to come from within. When she learned to love herself, pig nose and all, the spell was broken. She was no longer waiting for Mr. Right to save her. The secret was within her all along.

How many of us have wasted more than a few years waiting for the right man to come along and fix us. How many of us have stared in the mirror and figured we were unlovable because we weren’t pretty enough and had a disfiguration? I know there isn’t a girl alive that hasn’t struggled with the image she sees in the mirror. But if we can’t love what we see, how can we expect someone else to?

But there’s good news, even if it takes us a while to reconcile ourselves with the lies the mirror tells us and who we really are, there’s one man who’s already loved us unconditionally. Enough to lay down His life… He loves us even when we can’t yet love ourselves.